On Monday, we celebrated a milestone in global human rights that Evatt presided over: the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Trail-blazing Australian feminist lawyer Jessie Street worked with Evatt on both the declaration and the UN charter that preceded it. Street was the only female delegate on the charter. Other Australians also worked tirelessly to bring to light this landmark declaration, and other UN documents, which changed the global face of human rights.

But Australia's record as a global champion of human rights has diminished since. Australia is now the only Western democracy without a national human rights charter.

I recently hosted a YWCA event in Canberra with former Australian Human Rights Commission president Professor Gillian Triggs. She said she was often frustrated in her role by the schism between our professed commitment to human rights internationally and our utter indifference to them at home.

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For example, even though Australia's refugee policy has been found to be in breach of various international instruments, including the 1951 refugee convention, and the Convention Against Torture, there is no domestic recourse because no domestic law has been breached.

A national human rights act could provide that legal recourse.

In the past 15 years, and in the absence of a national human rights charter, states and territories have gone it alone.

Australia stands alone as the only Western nation without a bill of rights.Credit:Alan Porritt

The ACT was the first jurisdiction to adopt human rights legislation in 2004. Victoria followed suit in 2006 and, last month, Queensland also tabled a bill.

In the ACT and Victoria, these instruments have provided important safeguards against executive power, beyond those provided by our common law.

The ACT legislation has had the greatest impact in reforming and drafting legislation, and then in the parliamentary debate that follows. The ACT commission plays a unique role in commenting on draft laws, along with other government agencies and the community when it is consulted. Amendments are also regularly made to bills based on comments by the scrutiny of bills committee regarding human rights.

In comparison, the Victoria charter has been argued more frequently and with greater effect in the courts. In 2017, for example, the Victorian charter was used to successfully argue that the transfer of young people from the Parkville youth justice precinct to the Grevillea unit of the Barwon adult prison was unlawful. The Victorian courts found that re-gazetting Barwon prison unit as a youth justice centre was insufficient, and the young people needed to be detained in an appropriate facility.

The Queensland Human Rights Bill, introduced last month to that state's Parliament, treads a similar path to the Victorian and ACT legislation, with some key differences. Primarily, the Queensland commission will have a complaint-handling power based on a conciliation model, similar to that used in handling discrimination complaints. The Queensland legislation also follows the ACT's lead in legislating a right to education, although Queensland's is broader. It also adds rights to own property and access health services. It will be interesting to see how many amendments are made to the bill before it is passed into law next year.

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At a federal level, Australia has previously examined the case for a national human rights bill.

In 2009, Frank Brennan chaired a consultation committee, which recommended an ACT-style human rights act. At the time, however, there were concerns that such an act would be a feast for lawyers, or give too much power to unelected judges.

This has been a common and extremely disingenuous criticism of all bills of rights. It is judges, after all, who developed the common law over hundreds of years, building it up as a bulwark against executive and administrative encroachment into civil liberties.

While no law can be a magic bullet for solving complex social justice issues, the ACT's experience shows that human rights bills strengthen the rule of law and democracy.

To quote from Lord Hoffman, Britain's Human Rights Act has "strengthened the rule of law and not inaugurated the rule of lawyers".

As we celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, an instrument that changed how we think about rights, we need to reinvigorate the case for a national human rights charter.

Here in the ACT, the Human Rights Act has made a genuine cultural difference to the way the Legislative Assembly works. The act is often invoked in parliamentary debates by members across the political divide.

I look forward to the day a national human rights charters might be drawn upon by politicians of all persuasions in our Federal Parliament, to defend against encroachments of Australians' rights or liberties.

Dr Helen Watchirs is the president of the ACT Human Rights Commission.